Mobile World Congress will return to Barcelona next month for its 39th rendition, and if you’ve been, you probably have a good idea of what to expect: enormous booths, ambitious roadmaps, and enough “AI-powered” everything to last several lifetimes. This year’s theme is “The IQ Era” – intelligence meeting connectivity.
Differentiated will be in attendance once again as MWC is where our client’s industries make their biggest bets on what’s coming next. Telcos, tech companies and professional services firms all come together to show off the future they’re building. Last year, our CEO, Matt Neal, was particularly struck by the sheer scale of professional services firms like PwC, EY and Deloitte – companies whose expertise has traditionally been different to technology, yet here they were with massive setups rivalling the largest tech companies, staking their claim in the connectivity space. This year, our Marketing & BD Manager, Sam Hoare, will be attending his first MWC, curious to see whether the promises match the reality. Keep your eyes peeled for more from him and the team in the weeks to come.
As B2B marketeers, we’ve learned to watch not just for what gets announced, but at the same time what those announcements actually mean for the organisations we work with.
Here’s what we’re watching for, and why it matters for your marketing.
ConnectAI: When Everyone’s “AI-Native”
MWC’s ConnectAI theme promises self-optimising networks, agentic AI systems and the shift towards “AI-native telcos”. Autonomous operations and self-healing infrastructure that will be front and centre across the show floor.
Here’s the reality. While 38% of organisations are piloting agentic AI, only 11% have moved into production. Research suggests that 40% of agentic projects will face significant implementation challenges by 2027 because legacy systems can’t handle modern AI execution demands.The technology works, it’s just that most companies are trying to automate existing processes rather than redesigning operations for AI.
Why marketeers should care: your clients are being pitched on this constantly. They’re asking if you’re using it, but buyers are sceptical. Our Art & Science research showed that 56% of buyers feel more informed than ever, but less confident in their decisions. They’re drowning in content but at the same time starving for conviction.
What we’re watching for: companies showing production deployments with actual results, not pilot programs with potential. We’ll also be keeping an eye out for honest conversations about failure rates and when humans still need to intervene.
For your marketing: the brands that’ll cut through aren’t the ones shouting the loudest about autonomous everything, they’re helping buyers understand what’s real now. As Jon Buckthorp, our Commercial Director, put it after last year’s event: “AI and telco have an incredible story to tell, however too often the conversation stays at a high level. Rather than making grand claims about how AI will transform the world, show us the real-world impact”
Intelligent Infrastructure: APIs as the next platform play
One of the headline topics under MWC’s Intelligent Infrastructure theme, is GSMA’s Open Gateway initiative. The pitch makes sense: standardised network APIs that let developers worldwide tap into telco capabilities like verification, payments, and quality-of-service guarantees. Coverage has now reached 80% of global mobile connections.
But it’s true that telcos have tried becoming platforms before – app stores, mobile payments and even content marketplaces, all with limited success. Bain’s analysis notes the industry’s “poor track record of expansions into adjacent services and markets.” The current deployment patterns reveal the challenge: security APIs dominate implementations, whilst payment APIs – the ones developers actually want, remain underrepresented. The gap between what operators can easily expose and what the market values hasn’t closed, it’s actually widened.
What we’re watching for: who’s actually using these APIs in production, and whether operators have learned from past platform attempts or are simply repeating the same patterns with newer tech. Your buyers have seen multiple “platform revolution” pitches before. This time they need evidence of adoption, not roadmaps.
Game Changers: The satellite-to-cell energy paradox
MWC’S Games Changers theme will showcase breakthrough innovations, and two trends stand out, not because they are complementary but because they ironically directly contradict each other.
Satellite-to-cell connectivity is finally real. T-Mobile and Starlink launched text messaging in July 2025. AST SpaceMobile targets 45-60 satellites by the end of 2026 to enable voice and broadband. Universal coverage, the promise that’s been “five years away” for two decades, looks to be actually happening.
At the same time, AI’s energy demands are becoming unsustainable. Traditional data centres consume 10-20MW. AI-ready facilities require an eye watering 100-300MW. Ireland is expected to dedicate 32% of its national electricity to data centres, and a US Department of Energy forecast predicts AI will use over half of data centre electricity by 2028. The telecoms industry is promising connectivity everywhere whilst at the same time struggling to power the intelligence which makes said connectivity valuable.
What we’re watching for: honest conversations about the trade-offs, we want to see who’s acknowledging the energy constraints rather than simply pretending they don’t exist; The brands that will win are not the ones promising everything everywhere, they’re the ones that are helping buyers understand what to prioritise, and why.
The belief and delivery gap
Our Art & Science 2025 research found that 95% of B2B decision-makers pass through a stage of belief before they ever reach trust. This belief is what makes them open to a provider, however 92% acknowledge that is trust that makes them stay.
It was interesting to note also that our findings found 94% of decision-makers say that trust begins only after delivery or performance, while at the same time 87% find that most provider content tries to build trust, when what they really want is the belief that a provider understands the real world they operate in.
MWC 2026 will be full of promises – AI transformation, universal connectivity, platform economies and self-optimising networks. Most exhibitors will try to build trust through their marketing, despite it not being what buyers need. They need the belief that you actually understand their world, belief that is strong enough to open the door. Trust only comes after you’ve delivered on those Barcelona promises in the 12 months that follow.
We’ll be watching not just what’s announced, but how it’s communicated – and whether exhibitors recognise that belief before purchase is their job, whilst trust after delivery belongs to the whole company.
See you in Barcelona.